Cameras and various types of camera systems are well known and applied in a wide variety of applications to view and/or record images. A typical application, for example, of a camera system is to provide surveillance, such as for perimeter and facility security or general area awareness or monitoring of a given area. However, conventional cameras and camera systems have a number of potential drawbacks.
For example, a conventional camera or camera system for surveillance typically has a limited or narrow field of view. To overcome this limitation, for example, the camera may be mechanically driven to point at a desired area to be monitored that is outside of its normal field of view. However, this allows a portion of the required field of view to be unmonitored for a certain period of time, depending upon the slewing parameters of the mechanically driven camera.
As another example, a conventional camera may include a field of view that can be switched between a wide field of view and a narrow field of view (such as via a zoom feature). A user, for example, may switch to the narrow field of view to provide a higher resolution for an area of interest. However, it may be difficult to locate immediately the desired area of interest when switching to the narrow field of view (e.g., due to movement of a subject and/or due to time delays associated with the switching), sometimes referred to as a loss of track problem. Additionally, multi-phenomenological imagery using (but not limited to) multiple polarizations, 3-d LIDAR imagery or other techniques have this same limitation. Also, it is desirable to transmit wide field of view imagery from UAVs, remote cameras, and the like for situational awareness, as well as narrow field of view detailed imagery; however the bandwidth can limit the amount of highly-detailed narrow FOV imagery. As a result, there is a need for an improved camera and camera techniques.